In the Netherlands patent application 1021231 a debt collecting method is described for collecting a debt of a debtor, the debt being owed to a creditor. Data relating to the debt is stored in a data processing system. The data can be entered by the creditor or by any other authorised person, and comprises at least data concerning the debtor and the debt. Then, for the debt (for this case), access is permitted to other parties to at least a part of the data entered in the database. The party can e.g. comprise a debt collecting agency, a lawyer, a court, the debtor or the creditor. Based on the data entered in the database, an action is initiated by the system for collecting the debt. The action can e.g. comprise a sending of a letter to the debtor, a sending of instructions to perform a specific action to a party, etc.